• The activist group ACORN has announced it's disbanding.
• We should know the state dems' pick for Lt. Governor by the end of the week.
• On the rise: area gas prices.

The National Republican Senatorial Committee, which is targeting the open U.S. Senate seat in Illinois for a win next year, is calling on Democratic candidate Alexi Giannoulias to "demand the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) sever all financial ties with ACORN" before accepting the union's endorsement. This shouldn't come as a surprise for anyone that's watched the right sharpen their knives on the community group's recent missteps. Which should be par for the political course, if the GOP's own candidate, Mark Kirk, hadn't accepted support from SEIU in the past as well. “Originally I saw it as a Chicago union and if they wanted to help out candidates, that’s fine,” said Kirk. “The information that we now see is, though, that it appears highly inappropriate this organization is involved with the U.S. government.” The "highly inappropriate" involvement with the U. S. government Kirk is referring to? That includes a $140,000 earmark in 2005, for teen delinquency work ACORN was doing in New York. Which Mark Kirk voted for in 2005. more ›

Despite any existing ideological feelings about the existence and efforts of ACORN (what's that stand for, anyways? Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, that's what) any organization that is documented as doing anything to game the system should be bounced, and bounced fast. We live in a society that's got rules, whether we like it or not, and no organization on either side of the political fence gets to play outside the sandbox. Sometimes a few bad apples do get to ruin the whole damn bunch. more ›

Now that Early Voting Season has come to a close in Illinois, they've counted up the ballots, and a metric shitload of people turned out to make their mark. (Just the ballots have been counted - the actual votes won't be counted 'til election day.) ABC-7 reports that nearly half a million in Indiana, another half-million voters in Cook County, and about 285,000 in the collar counties all voted early, resulting in lines that had wait times of two hours in some cases. And we thought our ten minute wait was surprising a few weeks ago. more ›